Obama's Campaign Echoes Jackson's Run

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In the South, Echoes of Jackson’s Run

NYTimes
By ROBIN TONER
Published: January 24, 2008

Nearly 25 years of social change, political realignment and demographic shifts separate the presidential candidacies of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and Senator Barack Obama. Even so, there are echoes of 1984 as the battle for the Democratic nomination once again roars across the South, focused squarely on African Americans.

The differences can be summed up, in many ways, by two slogans. “Our Time has Come!” was the rallying cry of Mr. Jackson, a call to political empowerment for Southern blacks who still vividly remembered the struggle for the right to vote, capped by the bloody Selma marches and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Jackson cast his presidential campaign in 1983-84 as another great step in that movement, an effort to shake up the Democratic Party and ensure that, as he put it, “Hands that once picked cotton will now pick a President.”

It was an immensely powerful appeal, one that galvanized his audiences as much as any presidential candidate’s has in the last 30 years. His candidacy did, in fact, highlight the new power of black voters, the difference their turnout could make and their pivotal role in the Democratic Party coalition, especially in the new South.

It also changed the Democratic establishment in important ways. “We understood the moment,” said Donna Brazile, a top organizer for the 1984 Jackson campaign. “Jesse had a grievance with the party itself – it had to be opened up. He gave us all a seat at the table. Look at the Democratic National Committee today compared to the DNC back then.”

In contrast, one of Mr. Obama’s most memorable rallying cries, delivered in his victory speech after the Iowa caucuses, was: “We are one people. And our time for change has come!” It was the appeal of a mainstream politician, aimed at voters across the board, delivered to an overwhelmingly white constituency that he had just won.

Contrary to stereotypes, “Obama’s base most certainly hasn’t been the black vote,” said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group that focuses on policy issues of concern to African-Americans. “For most of the past year, that was considered more a part of Hillary’s base than Obama’s base.”

And Mr. Obama has not regularly wrapped himself in the mantle of the civil rights movement, the hallmark of an earlier generation of black politicians, many of whom had served with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As the final stretch of the South Carolina campaign began on Sunday, Mr. Obama did take the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, home church of Dr. King and holy ground for the movement. But even there, in a speech laced with the history of the struggle for civil rights, Mr. Obama closed with a message aimed at a biracial, new generation audience: the image of a young white woman, motivated by her mother’s health care troubles, and an elderly black man working together for his campaign in South Carolina.

Another big difference between 1984 and today: Mr. Obama comes South with a well-financed, full-fledged national campaign and clear credibility as a potential nominee. “With Obama, you don’t know where the train is going to stop,” said Ms. Brazile. “This is a different candidate, a different season, a man who transcends race in many ways.”

There are, however, echoes of 1984 . . .


article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/us/politics/24web-toner.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[sunonmars]

1. ouch!

[AX10]

2. Ouch!

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3. ouch?